Brainwave entrainment occurs when observable and measureable brainwave activity follows the repetitious patterns of external stimulus. Sensory forms of entrainment, including visual stimulation as from a flickering candle or auditory stimulation as from a dripping faucet, can lead a person into a trancelike state. This state can often occur during highway driving, causing the common phenomena of “highway hypnoses.” Such trancelike states can be confirmed with electroencephalography (EEG) which monitors a subject's brainwave activity, where the brainwave activity mimics that of sleeping brainwaves.
It has been shown that human brainwaves have standardized patterns which are consistent from day to day. These patterns, or rhythms, are referred to as circadian rhythms when the patterns have a period of twenty-four hours before repeating. Periods or cycles with approximately ninety-minutes are referred to as ultradian rhythms. While the specific brain activity of any given ultradian rhythm can vary, the general patterns are consistent within the larger circadian rhythm. These ultradian rhythms have been widely studied for night cycles and have common names such as ‘Stage 1’, ‘Stage 2’, and ‘REM’ sleep. Similarly, there exist ultradian cycles for daytime cycles. Daytime ultradian rhythms are typically identified by measuring the core body temperature of a mammal, as ambulatory EEG monitoring is both expensive and invasive. Such daytime ultradian rhythms may be recognized intuitively as most people experience the typical mid-morning and mid-afternoon slumps in energy, as well as accompanying peaks in activity. FIG. 1 shows a complete circadian rhythm with both day and night ultradian cycles.
Over time, however, the ultradian rhythms observed during sleep cycles tend to flatten out, resulting in poorer sleep. Furthermore, one can lose the natural rhythms of sleeping, waking, and living which produce a healthy and happy lifestyle. What is desired then is a way to emulate healthy brainwave activity in such a way as to cause entrainment, such that brainwave activity remains or returns to healthy levels.
There exists technology to perform brainwave entrainment; however these iterations fail in significant ways. For example, most iterations fail to provide a bi-polar based signal, fail to base these brainwave entrainments on natural therapeutic healing frequencies following natural circadian and ultradian rhythms, and fail to modulate the signals with a Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) using an eXclusive OR (XOR). Those iterations which do use bi-polar, XOR modulated natural healing frequencies, particularly those disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/307,348 and 11/949,717, lack the ability for one to receive the frequency stimulations necessary for brainwave entrainment unless one is within a very short distance of, or even touching, the entrainment apparatus. It is desirable then, to have a bi-polar, natural therapeutic frequency based circadian rhythm, XOR modulated brainwave entrainment device where one can receive the entrainment signals without being tethered to an apparatus, but rather can receive these signals while present at a given premises.